cry the wounded land- Why? & Contents page

WHY THIS BOOK?This book makes uncomfortable reading. It isn’t kosher.I didn’t get any warning that God wanted to talk about this.

One day, without any warning, I found myself in a back and forward conversation with God - about Maori and Pakeha. It took me completely by surprise. It wasn’t what he and I had started out talking about that morning. When I realised where the conversation was going I tried to change the subject, but God kept bringing the discussion back to the brown and white story.

It’s not only New Zealand that’s bleeding.

When I published that first conversation, I got a lot of heartfelt response. Most of it was very positive, and it came from Maori and Pakeha. Many urged me to have other conversations like it. I even heard from people in other countries – South Africa, the USA, Canada, Australia, Ireland and others. They tell me their nations are wounded too. It seems many of us need to move forward, as two or more people, on one shared land.

The topic of this book is dangerous, there’s been hurt on both sides, so I tried to change the subject, but God wouldn’t let up.

I did my best to avoid the subject, but God kept starting new conversations about it. And each of those conversations drew intense interest from people I’ve never met.

Eventually he seemed to say that I should gather all those conversations together in one place to make it easier for people interested in this subject. So here they are – ‘Cry the Wounded Land’ – conversations with God about Maori and Pakeha, and the Land.

WARRIOR NATION: This isn’t my story, it’s yours too– will you help me write the rest of it?

This book holds 19 of my conversations with God about our two mighty people, Maori and Pakeha, and New Zealand, our living, breathing land. If through my conversations with him, you hear his voice on the wind, then please start your own.

Prayer is powerful – but I’m asking you for something different. I’m asking you to converse with him back and forward, and get answers you can share with the rest of us.

By all means, pray for our land, it releases his power. But traditional prayer is not my subject, others are a lot better at that than me.

I’m asking you to do something different, to have your own back and forth conversation with God about this, just like you would with

a friend. A conversation like Cain and Abraham, Moses and Balaam, Elijah, Jesus and Paul had. Yes they prayed and that released power, but they also had back and forth conversations with him that still tell us what he thinks about things.

It’s time we had conversations like that too, about our two people and our land. Conversations so clear, that you can document them, and tell others, sentence by sentence, what he said to you. That’s what I’ve done in this book. And now, I’m asking you to do it too.Will you help?

He wanted us, Maori and Pakeha, to show the world how to meld two great peoples together, a marriage, a powerful union. Please have your own conversations with him about this.

If we don’t get into a dialogue with him about this that we can share with others, he will have to wait another generation, to show the world what he wanted to through New Zealand.

I’m white, these are my conversations, but we need to hear God speak about this in brown voices, and white – yellow, black, red, and every other colour voice too. Please, please you warriors of the land, ask and document what he’s saying. Tell us in words written down, tell us in words sung, stomped and shouted. Haka this to us, as we write and sing, and say it back to you. Kia Kaha (be strong).